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re: The BIG 6 vs The BIG 6 ALL-TIME
Posted on 8/12/16 at 1:24 pm to BHMKyle
Posted on 8/12/16 at 1:24 pm to BHMKyle
quote:
But 2006 was different. Shula's overall performance was not that bad despite his 6-6 record. Aside from the head-scratching loss to Mississippi State, Bama lost to the #1, #3, #9, #15, and #25 teams of 2006... by an average of just 8 points.
Shula's entire gameplan was created to keep all games close but win none of them. I know the scores of those games. I drove to Gainesville, Fayetteville, Knoxville and Baton Rouge that year.
We also only won by 8 vs Hawaii, 3 vs Vanderbilt, 16 vs Duke (losing at halftime) and 3 vs Ole Miss.
So 3 of our wins were by an average of 5 pts, at home, vs teams that went 11-3 WAC, 4-8 and 4-8. Duke went 0-12.
On top of that, he did lose to Mississippi State, which was an utter embarrassment. And THEN he lost to Auburn......AGAIN. That team was not very good. They had no good wins, they weren't particularly young and they didn't get better as the year went on. They were just blah.
quote:
Despite losing to Auburn in 2005, I think Bama felt they had largely wrestled back a lot of the power that had been lost to Auburn in 2004. At the end of the season, Bama sat at 10-2 and #8 in the country... Auburn was 9-3 and #14. Losing to Auburn in 2005 was not a fire-able offense because despite the Iron Bowl loss, Shula took back a lot of power that year.
Sure he did - then he gave it all back by immediately showing that 2005 was a fluke of close wins with a bunch of really, really good seniors. 2006, his 4th year, looked a whole lot like 2004.
quote:
But the problem was Auburn put together a pretty impressive season in 2006. They were 11-2 and their season included an impressive win over the eventual National Champion Florida Gators. Auburn's 11-2 record... which ballooned to an impressive 33-5 over the previous 3 seasons... is what caused Alabama to panic and fire Shula. The 5 consecutive losses to Auburn were a big part.... as were other things.... but the main reason Shula was let go is that it was obvious at the end of 2006 that Tuberville had all the power in the state of Alabama.
I mean, that just isn't true. Shula was fired because he was
(a) Not performing, even in his "best year" we still lost to LSU and Auburn
(b) He was losing recruiting to Auburn in-state (as well as LSU and Tennessee who were cherry picking kids)
(c) The program appeared to be on a stale, mediocre plane
The idea that we fired Shula because of Auburn is just silly and total revisionist history.
This post was edited on 8/12/16 at 1:29 pm
2
Posted on 8/12/16 at 1:36 pm to SummerOfGeorge
quote:
Shula was fired because he was
(a) Not performing, even in his "best year" we still lost to LSU and Auburn
(b) He was losing recruiting to Auburn in-state (as well as LSU and Tennessee who were cherry picking kids)
(c) The program appeared to be on a stale, mediocre plane
You can add to it poor game day adjustments/roster management (the play-call that got Prothro hurt was moronic and unnecessary. had he not done that the 2005 season may have gone differently for him).
You can also add that the team was something like 0-15 when trailing entering the 4th quarter. During Shula's 4 years in Tuscaloosa, you basically only had to beat Bama for 3 qtrs b/c he proved incapable of coaching his way out of a deficit.
Posted on 8/13/16 at 12:32 pm to SummerOfGeorge
quote:
I mean, that just isn't true. Shula was fired because he was
(a) Not performing, even in his "best year" we still lost to LSU and Auburn
(b) He was losing recruiting to Auburn in-state (as well as LSU and Tennessee who were cherry picking kids)
(c) The program appeared to be on a stale, mediocre plane
And perhaps more importantly, when pressed by Mal Moore for what changes he would make on the staff, offered nothing more than cosmetic adjustments. Bama's OL was horrendous.
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